NCAA Made Changes, What Were The Results
This was Year 1. This was the first of what could be a prolonged experience for college prospects and a complete testing ground that might make things quite a bit more difficult for college coaches. But, this is the situation…
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Continue ReadingThis was Year 1. This was the first of what could be a prolonged experience for college prospects and a complete testing ground that might make things quite a bit more difficult for college coaches. But, this is the situation we are in for the foreseeable future and we can now take a step back and look at the pros and cons as well as expectations for this 2020 class and future classes.
Let’s start off by breaking down the changes and what the new model of Evaluation Periods looks like:
Previous Setup:
- Two 3-day periods in April
- Three 5-day periods in July
- All are with AAU programs.
- Total of 21 days of recruiting.
New Setup:
- One 3-day period in April
- Two 3-day periods in June
- One 4-day period in July
- USA and NCAA Camps open to coaches
- 7 days with AAU, 6 days with High School
- Total of 14 days w/o Camps
The new setup provides an overall amount of less days than the old setup. 14 compared to 21 days. You can’t take into account the camps because not everyone can attend and while Indiana had quite a few players picked for the NCAA camps, it wasn’t even remotely enough that needed an opportunity.
Also, the split between high school and AAU only matters if your state provides a camp or showcase. Indiana provided both which seemed like the best scenario of all of the states who chose to participate which was only 18 of 50. But with that, only the players that were selected for the IBCA Top 100 event could take advantage of that.
What Worked Out?
From talking with coaches and players, the opportunity to play with their high school programs was widely accepted. Not so much for the efficiency or effectiveness but because it provides a different look and opportunity. If you can get it more refined with making it as efficient as possible, notably putting the games in one gym or as close as humanly possible, this could be something that sticks. However, Indiana is one of only a few states that were able to take advantage of this. The combination of the Top 100 Showcase and the Charlie Hughes Shootout seemed to give the best of both worlds.
The NCAA Camps aren’t a bad idea but poor execution. Moving the date and changing the format and just getting more talent will go a long way, however, having a separate entity that isn’t built around making money and providing a good product and another opportunity was helpful but it didn’t do as well as it should have in Year 1.
What Didn’t Work?
A lot didn’t work. This was a shell of what the evaluation periods have been in past years. Many teams were selling out for DI coaches so they ended up playing in events just to get close to them. In Indiana, I’m not sure I saw a DI program outside of maybe Evansville that recruited an event in-state this entire Spring and Summer. So, that was the result of so many teams going away. Only two times this year where they able to be with their AAU teams so many wanted to take advantage of it. Hard to argue against it if you have some legitimate talent.
The other big issue was the overall lack of days. The high-major coaches, the elite coaches, they don’t care so much about being on the road because they don’t need to. They can also take advantage of USA Basketball and some other events. But, if you were a bad Power 5 program or lower, you need as much time as humanly possible. But, those elite coaches are the ones that are going to have the most impact on the decisions here and have the voice to make a change but they don’t need to at this point. So, for prospects, have a full 7-days less is hurtful. You no longer have the time if you are a DI team to go off the beaten path, search deeper in the roster books, or take a chance to find a hidden gem. You have to spend your time at the top of the board and just focus on those because those 7 days you are missing used to afford you that opportunity. Jake Laravia, you might have been the last player to take advantage of that.
The NCAA Camps were just bad. The idea in theory is good but when you don’t have enough talent, do too much drill work and not enough games, and replace and are not in addition to more AAU evaluations, it can really only be looked at as an overall failure. Should kids be wanting to attend this? Yes, because common sense is you should take every advantage to get in front of DI coaches you can. However, logic doesn’t live in this world like some would think. We had some programs that just didn’t do anything the final week of July, they just took it off rather than attend the camps or do anything. That is kind of telling what people thought this year.
How Does This Effect Recruiting?
This is going to have long lasting effects in recruiting. This 2020 class will be one of the most screwed over classes you will find in history. They got less time than anyone else in recent history and when you add in that it wasn’t a deep class anyway, that will make it look even worse on paper. Some will have you think that DI programs will be out in the Fall and Winter to get some more time in front of college prospects but that just isn’t true. They will be out but not more than they would have normally. Open gyms and high school games are about the least valuable setting to determine whether to offer a prospect or not.
Coaches want to see competitive players playing in competitive games and when half a roster is made up of kids that won’t play beyond high school, that isn’t ideal. That is why AAU has become so impactful. It gives you a ton of talent, put into teams that are together for more than just a day or two and typically every player on the floor is a potential college prospect all playing for that scholarship. Only in AAU does that happen. Now, you have coaches that will be making a decision based off of less and more incomplete information and if you thought transfer rates were high before, you might want to start tracking those 2020 prospects and see how many are on the move in college.
If you were a borderline college prospect for a DI program, the likelihood is you aren’t going to get an offer. Coaches will likely hedge their offers for surefire guys because they are more unsure of the talent of a player now more than they ever have been. Instead, you could see JUCO and Prep School players and even transfers become an even bigger priority as they can feel more at ease than a less refined and unknown high school prospect.
Will This Continue?
From everything we have heard, this is most likely going to continue into next year in very much the same way. They could install a new Spring Evaluation period, a 3-day weekend, that could help balance things out. This would increase the number of days to 17. However, July is likely to be the same and that is the most important time period. They will want more than just one year before making a change because they need more information and don’t want this to look like a failure so not scrapping it after one year will be important to them.
What To Do For Next Year?
We are going to break this down into a few different sections based upon talent level. For DI prospects, you are going to have to take advantage of every chance you can to be in front of coaches. This isn’t always the thing people will want to accept but doing the NCAA camps, traveling to wherever DI coaches will be, that is probably your best bet. You have limited days and you make a name for yourself during the summer, not as much during the winter. That means getting on a shoe circuit team, making sure your high school program is playing in the Charlie Hughes Shootout, and getting in for the Top 100 and NCAA Camp.
For DII and below targets, there are some things to really pay attention to here. First off, non-DI programs don’t travel. There usually isn’t any point. It cost a ton more money and they need to be efficient with their time so they tend to stay local and just take advantage of events in-state. So, they aren’t going to go to Atlanta or Vegas. Also, non-DI teams from Atlanta or Vegas are not going to recruit Indiana players. They can get local kids with talent a lot easier and don’t have the contacts to know if there is a good fit with a kid.
The best plan for non-DI kids is to get on a team that has a ton of players that are the same level. It usually works out better than any other. If you have 5 DII level kids on a team, colleges will watch that team more often than a team that only has 1 DII level kid. More efficient use of their time and that will give you a better chance. Also, if you aren’t playing, you aren’t getting recruited. Don’t go and sit on the bench for a shoe company team. If you can’t get on the floor, this doesn’t give you a chance to be seen. Then, stay local. Take advantage of colleges here and rack up offers. In recruiting, you gain momentum by accumulating offers. 1 turns into 2, 2 turns into 4. Level of offers don’t matter as much. Just pick them up. From Jake Laravia, to Desmond Bane, there are a ton of examples of kids that get a DIII or NAIA offer and end up DI. Keep yourself relevant and coaches will come flocking.
Because DII, DIII, and NAIA programs can be out pretty much non-stop during AAU season, take advantage of that and stay local and stay with your AAU team. June will be a change of pace for you but the NCAA camps for non-DI prospects won’t help. This year, every non-DI program I talked to said they were not going to attend the NCAA Camp. There wasn’t a point for them. There were more players locally playing in AAU events and it was a better use of their time.
Final Thoughts
For players coming up, you aren’t going to understand how impactful this change has and will continue to be because there isn’t a reference point to pull from. If you are a parent that has had older children go through it, you will have some perspective. For those of us that have been around a lot more and have seen the changes, this summer was tough to go through. Your best bet is to ask more questions, figure things out by talking to scouts, talking to college coaches, see what happened to those in the 2020 class and learn from them. This is all new to everyone so learning and adapting is key. Use common sense even though that isn’t always the way things are done in this world. Take advantage of any and every opportunity because the one thing we know is that there just aren’t as many as there were before.